Been in Berlin. Fabulous museums, lovely people, a million ghosts, but Is there a worse food city on the planet? (Slough, perhaps, but, okay then, 'in civilised Europe').
I think this must be some kind of twisted revenge on Southern Europe for its lax economic policies: Nespressoish-packaged flavoured weiss bier
I can't even begin to imagine...
That said, this light lunch was terrific:
A friend of ours bagged the 'banqueting' or private dining room at Noma this week. I don't think it's all that well known that Noma has a room like this, let alone that it is a) probably easier to book than a table in the downstairs dining room, and yet, b) if you have ten people it costs no more.
Always exciting to see what they are up to at Copenhagen's most famous restaurant - frankly, I'd be happy to perch on the back step out by the bins to try this food.
This was part of an edible flower arrangement as we embarked upon our journey through the strange, brilliant mind of René Redzepi.
Pork scratchings with blackberry leather - an inspired pairing, surprisingly porky with a nice sourness from the berries. Obvious potential for a commercial product I'd have thought.
Next was Noma's very clever edible mussel shell made (I think) out of seaweed - at least, it reminded me of the kind of seaweed snacks you can buy in Lawson stores in Japan, with an actual mussel in situ. It arrives on a plate of real mussel shells, covered with another real shell just to confuse you. Wonder how many guests have chomped down on the wrong bit...
So, we were actually 13 around the table - two consultants from a posh hospital in London and two wealthy Greek emigrés, also from London, all of whom had flown in specially and were flying out first thing the next morning; two Danish jazz musicians (brothers, one of them with his gorgeous, new Indian wife), me, Lissen, Lissen's brother, and some Danish film people.
I was surprised by how many baulked at the next course, the raw - live and kicking - fjord shrimp.
I
I have had them before, and I suppose they are a bit of a challenge. They were quite frisky. I have a theory about these shrimp - that they might be the reason why Noma hasn't yet won its third Michelin star: I suspect that the pasty-faced men in cheap suits from the tyre company don't appreciate this kind of Viking coarseness. They don't get it. They would probably rather see the shrimp puréed, deep fried and served up its own fundament with an inedible garnish. I do actually get their point, but it's not the point of Noma and, well, they ought to lighten up a little and go with the flow.
Perhaps the next course might be more their kind of thing: a hay-smoked quail's egg. A staggering mouth-, and nose-full, the sweet, smokey egg popping lightly, almost with a sigh, in your mouth.
Next, a dish which René first showed me how to make about eight years ago for a BBC radio programme. It is still on the menu and now a classic: radish in the most luscious herb cream with fake soil made from malt and hazelnuts.
This was followed by a quite striking visual prospect: traditional Danish doughtnuts (æbleskiver) with fermented sprats and, concealed within, a chunk of pickled cucumber. Like something from the mind of Hieronymous Bosch. It looks like the fish have been caught mid-dive: the Japanese have something similar in which small fish and tofu are gently boiled together and the fish seek refuge in the cool heart of the bean curd.
I admit I struggled with this - not because of how it looks, but more the blend of sugary batter, fish, pickled cucumber and the very tart vinegary dust sprinkled over the them, in imitation of powdered sugar. It is a challenging mouthful.
Next, one of Noma's latest innovations - fermented peas, in the style of miso. They call it 'Peaso', and it tastes of peas, or rather, of an especially vivid memory of peas. How peas ought to taste, but rarely do. Great. Another new invention with commercial potential.
Dish of the evening coming up: razor clam, wrapped in a parsley gel with horseradish 'snow'. I wanted about ten of these. Elegant, delicious, conceptually sound - a triumph.
Though Noma's private dining room has plenty of light via a wall of windows overlooking Copenhagen harbour, the night was drawing in at this point. As I would rather drop my trousers in Oxford Circus than use a flash to photograph my dinner (taking pictures of one's dinner is embarrassing enough behaviour and, though I try to do it as surreptitiously as possible - like an international spy, I like to think - the effect is probably more like a paedophile in a playground), the images diminish in quality hereon in. This is a dish of dried, shaved scallops with various grains and a Squid ink sauce.
Ah, squid ink. One of the world's great ingredients.
As the light dimmed even more, there came a pine-themed dish with asparagus. The flavour of pine always conjures for me shades of Toilet Duck, but chefs can not be responsible for their guests' associations, and it did pair really well with the early season (for Denmark) asparagus.
And, almost impossible to see, a staggeringly beautiful plate of vegetables, herbs and small, coin-sized discs of soft bone marrow - a kind of contemporary gargouillou.
And, as the quality of photos deteriorated dramatically hereafter, next, for no reason other than I am a very proud father and this is my blog so I can do whatever I like, instead of the rest of the meal, is a photo of Asger and Emil.
One last word specifically on the private dining experience. The food at Noma is intimate and cerebral, so, for me, the downstairs dining room is a better environment in which to appreciate it, preferably with a maximum of one dining companion. Somehow, even though Trevor and the other members of the Noma team who brought us our food did an excellent and entertaining job of introducing the dishes and ingredients, something was lost in the melée.
This is not really food to socialise over, especially when you haven't met some of your co-diners before and you are trying to get up to speed with who they are, what they do and why some of them are dressed like extras from Star Trek.
It's a small but subtle point which I hadn't really thought of before - I was just excited to get to eat at Noma once again. I had spoken to René earlier in the day and he had asked when I was coming to eat at Noma. Confused, I replied: 'I'm coming tonight at seven.' 'No,' he said. 'I meant, when are you coming to eat downstairs?' And now I know what he meant. That's where the real Noma experience is to be savoured. .
A while back, I idly emailed my publisher to enquire when the deadline was for my next book, which is going to be about the Nordic region and its various weird and wonderful people (nothing to do with food). He told me it had actually been due in February. 2011. Oops.
Which explains my unforgivable radio silence here on the blog. Basically, I haven't been anywhere, I haven't eaten anything interesting, I haven't done anything apart from sit at my computer until my joints ache with repetitive strain and my eyes are square.
Anyhoo, to be getting along with, here are two disgracefully indulgent pieces which have just gone up on the High Life website on cooking schools around the world and Shanghai street food to be going along with. The Shanghai piece also has a great little video at the end where the photographer, Andrew, has tracked down a few of the amazing vendors whose food I inhaled so greedily.
For some years, Rene at Noma has been telling me about a mad Scotsman called Roderick Sloan who lives up in the Arctic Circle in northern Norway and supplies his restaurant with, among other things, the most amazing sea urchins.
Now, sea urchins happen to be my most favourite thing to eat in all the world, ahead even of flødebolle so, when I finally got to meet Roderick at the Mad Foodcamp Symposium back in the summer and he invited me up to Nordskott where he lives and fishes, I said yes in a heartbeat.
It was staggeringly beautiful, despite being -15.
Roderick had also invited a bunch of chefs, not just from Noma, but also from elsewhere in Norway as well as the much acclaimed Faviken in Sweden. Here he is, telling us where we are.
Cognitive scientists tell us that we more easily agree to do something arduous if it is going to happen far in the future. I don't really do boats. When Roderick invited me to the Arctic to go fishing in February, it was August. I said yes all too readily, then spent the next seven months wondering what on earth I had gotten myself into.
But here I am with my quarry after a not-too-bad-at-all trip on a trawler (admittedly drugged up to my eyeballs on sea sickness tablets).
But Roderick didn't just have a little fishing trip in mind. He wanted me - and in particular the chefs he supplies - to really understand exactly what was involved in the harvesting of the seafood they served in their restaurants. So, he gave us some dry suits (though no gloves or hats), a snorkel and sent us into the -2 Arctic waters to get a feel for ourselves.
The dry suits kept us reasonably warm (I was fully clothed beneath this, which explains the 'tubbiness'), but by the time we came out of the water it literally felt as if our hands were on fire, an incredible sensation - so cold, it was hot.
Roderick also dives for mahogany clams (left) and soft shell clams (right), or as the latter are apparently nicknamed in the Noma kitchen, 'dick clams'. Can't think why.
The dick clams, which we ate raw after peeling the, erm, protrusion of its elephantine skin, were the sweetest seafood I have ever eaten, with a wonderful texture. Fantastic.
The mahogany clams were also sensationally good, here being prepared by Jonny of Faviken, and served on flaxseed crackers. A stunning combination of earthy and iodine flavours. New Nordic surf 'n' turf.
The money shot:
Why the starfish? Well, as Roderick explained, every time a restaurant asks him to send a sample box he includes a couple of them. He knows they are eaten in Japan, and they are related to sea urchins, but can't figure out how to prepare them and he is hoping some inventive chef will come up with a use for them (I think in Japan they dry and grind them as a seasoning, though I am not sure).
Sea urchins have had a tough time of it these last years. Off the coast of California they were considered a pest as they were believed to eat the kelp which local companies used for beauty products, so they covered them with caustic soda. Then they realised they could eat them or sell them to the Japanese to eat, so they over fished them. The only really sustainable way to harvest them is how Roderick does it - leaving fields alone on a five year rotation so that depleted stocks have a chance to regroup - and picking them by hand.
It's hard work, and I watched Roderick dive for about an hour, as he lost all feeling in his lips, and his hands turned to blocks of ice during the process, but I am glad someone's doing it. And I am sure the guys at Noma are. Here is their 'sea shore' dish which features Roderick's sea urchins as a powder strewn like sand across the pebbles.
I went for lunch at Dinner the other day. Of course, I had to have the courageously unappetisingly-named 'Meat Fruit', a chicken liver/foie gras parfait enrobed in a mandarin jelly, which has become the restaurant's signature dish.
Here it is:
And the wobbliness of the subsequent photo ought to be enough to tell you just how good it not just looks, but also tastes.
Once I had tried my first mouthful, all thoughts of carefully composed photographs went out the window. Quick, take the damn picture so you can get on with eating more!
It was one of those occasions on which clever formal dickery was more than matched by sheer flavour. Man, that liver mousse tasted incredibly great. Exquisitely light, whipped to within an inch of its life, with punchy seasoning, and an acidic tangerine coating to cut through that artery-clagging fattiness.
The rest of the meal, and indeed the restaurant and service, were excellent too, but that meat fruit will stay with me for a long time to come.
There's a recipe here. Time to dust off the Thermomix...
I provoked whatever the Twitter equivalent of a few raised eyebrows is a while back when I was in Rome and mentioned online how lacklustre I thought the food was there. There was little variety, the quality of produce was poor, the service hostile, the restaurant decor dated... I could go on but, essentially, the Italian capital - at least the central part of it (the bit circled by the Metro, with all the main tourist sights) - just didn't have much of a food vibe. I am sure there are worse capital cities (Bern and Warsaw spring to mind), and doubtless there's some good stuff out in the suburbs, but one would hope for so much more from Rome. When I think how long the list of 'must eat' restaurants is in central London and Paris, you would expect more of the Eternal City.
I'd really done my research and tried to find some interesting places before we went, but the pickings were thin before we'd even left, and the reality was even more sparse.
Frankly, if this young chap had actually been behind the stoves, I would have stood a better chance of getting a decent meal.
Thank the good lord for the gelato, although we had to eat an awful lot of mediocre stuff before we discovered the new Flor on via Cavour, which was stunningly good.
This pizza place, a ten minute walk from the Vatican, has generated a great deal of heat online for its 'gourmet' toppings (smoked eel; baccalao, etc), but it was fiercely expensive, you had to eat sitting hunched on a bench outside, and the crusty, bread-like base reminded me why I prefer soft, doughy Neapolitan pizzas so very much more.
So, the dining options were a disappointment, but I at least hoped for a few decent food stores, particularly around the Campo di Fiori market.
There were a couple...
But literally only two, and the market itself was a tourist travesty with no fish, meat or cheese. This (below) pretty much summed up the level of food retail in Rome (just lacking that extra 'i').
I was far more inspired by this sign for a ladies detective agency: there's a whole new TV franchise right there, I'd have thought.
And, just to round off the Shanghai stuff, some final photos of things that caught my eye.
Like this house, which looks like something from a Roald Dahl story.
The poultry guy's wares. Don't think I've ever seen such dejected looking ducks.
Next door, a man selling lampreys in a baby bath (well, it's a living):
The lovely packaging of the hairy crab seller, for that extra special hostess gift.
One of the most interesting streets in Shanghai for nosing around on is Jinxian Road in the French Concession. There's a strange cognitive dissonance in walking around in a place which looks like one of the quieter arondissments but there's a guy slaughtering chickens on the kerbside and the air is filled with the smell of hot peanut oil and soy.
This, I was reliably informed, is the best restaurant on the street, the one-up, one-down Lan Xin (No.130). The New York Times wrote about another place a couple of doors down a while back, apparently, but Lan Xin is superior. It is the closest you can get to eating your Shanghai grandmother's food without having a Shanghai grandmother.
Downstairs was full...
So we were shown upstairs to what appeared to be the owners' living space.
Some of the best food of my trip: top right is a whole pomfret with fermented rice sauce. Delish.
But probably best of all was this steamed clover. Didn't even know clover was a food.
The pork in this hot pot was rather gnarly, but loved the tofu skin and the broth was wonderful.
On a rather different note, I also ate down on the Bund at the Peninsula Hotel.
I had steered clear of the Bund, my trip being more about indigenous, day-to-day Shanghai food than glam ‘fine dining’, but on my final night I succumbed to the high rolling allure of Yi Long Court. Its hushed Art Deco dining room was a world away from my experiences of the previous few days: this was world class haute cuisine, by any measure. Looking out at the great towers of Pudong as I tucked into a dish of spoon-tender braised beef with matsutake mushrooms, I thought to myself: Shanghai really does have it all.
One restaurant's name kept cropping up as the most authentic in Shanghai whenever I talked to locals, friends who had visited Shanghai, or when I searched online: Jesse. It's actually a small chain, but I was invited one evening to the original, by chef Austin Hu of Madison, and we were joined by a great group of expat and local chefs, food writers and enthusiastic eaters.
Staggering food. So many new dishes, flavours and textures. Pungent fermented tofu (left) was not, I have to admit, one of my favourites, but the tofu skin salad (right) was great.
Another challenging dish, drunken crab: raw crab marinaded in shaoxing wine. I've read some reports that the live crabs are literally drowned in the rice wine. Not such a bad way to go, I suppose. Most disconcerting was the fizziness of the resulting raw crab meat, fizziness usually being one of nature's warning signs that something is no longer edible.
This, though, was stunning - head of a grouper, roasted on a bed of some kind of sea asparagus-type thing.
And, at last, my chance to taste sea cucumber. Delicious, actually: very mild, very soft, very difficult to pick up with chopsticks in front of a table of people with expert chopstick skills.
And, the legendary Shanghai dish: hairy crab.
Shanghai food is resolutely un-spicy (sugar, soy, garlic and ginger are the main flavours), so this fried prawn dish was a bit of a surprise. Actually, the chillis weren't all that hot.
'Eight treasure duck', stuffed with eight ingredients, of which I can only remember 'rice'. Crunchy, fatty, meaty, delicious.
Pomfret marinated in fermented rice.
... which be followed by far too many cocktails.
